Alonso del Castillo Maldonado is a captain…
April 1528 CE
Alonso del Castillo Maldonado is a captain of Pánfilo de Narváez's expedition to colonize Florida and the Gulf Coast, which had departed Spain in 1527.
When the expedition was organized, he and Andrés Dorantes de Carranza had obtained a boat under his command.
Castillo, born in Salamanca, Spain, the son of the doctor Castillo and Aldonza Maldonado, is a close cousin of the Alcalde Mayor of Santo Domingo, Alonso Maldonado.
Raised, like Dorantes, in a poor noble family of hidalgos, Castillo has traveled to the Americas in order to obtain wealth.
Dorantes was born in Béjar del Castañar, Salamanca (or possibly in Gibraleon), Spain, around 1500.
His father is Pablo Dorantes and he had been raised in a poor hidalgo family of an ancient lineage.
Dorantes de Carranza has traveled to the Americas to enrich himself under Narváez, who Charles V has appointed adelanto of Florida.
Accompanying Dorrantes is one Esteban, later called Estevanico, who had been sold into slavery in 1522 in the Portuguese-controlled Berber town of Azemmour, on Morocco's Atlantic coast.
He had been sold to Dorantes, who has taken Estevanico as his slave on the Narvaez expedition.
Estevanico had been raised as a Muslim, but because Spain does not permit non-Catholics to travel to the New World, some historians believe he had converted to Roman Catholicism.
Some contemporary accounts refer to him as an "Arabized black" or "Moor", a generic term often used for anyone from North Africa.
Diego de Guzmán, a contemporary of Estevanico who will see him in Sinaloa in 1536, describes his skin as "brown".
When leaving the island of Hispaniola and entering the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, a ship had been put under the joint command of Captains Castillo and Dorantes.
The expeditionary group had survived a hurricane near Cuba and, though intending to sail west to the mouth of the Rio de las Palmas (modern Rio Soto la Marina) in northern Mexico, a combination of the Gulf current and an inexperienced navigator had caused their course to veer north.
On April 12, 1528, they spot land north of what is now Tampa Bay.
They turns south and travel for two days looking for what the pilot Miruelo describes as a great harbor.
During these two days, one of the five remaining ships is lost.
Finally, after spotting a shallow bay, Narváez orders entry.
They pass into Boca Ciega Bay north of the entrance to Tampa Bay.
They spot buildings set upon earthen mounds, encouraging signs of culture (and wealth), food, and water.
The natives have been identified as members of the Safety Harbor Culture (Tocobaga).
The Spaniards dropped anchors and prepared to go ashore.
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